I apologize. I'm not sure where the heck I've been in the last seven months...and how that much time has gone past, but here we are, and, since we've all become a bit more homebound than we're used to, I figured now was a good time to get back into the practice of blogging!
I've been reflecting on this a lot lately...at the beginning of Lent I had prayed for the grace to slow down my life a bit. I felt like I had been running around at such a crazy pace, at least internally, that I needed to consciously slow it down. Bur really Lord, I just meant me..., not the whole world!
So, I'm gonna take a deep breath and focus a bit on the Sunday coming up. It was really quite a surprise to me how very much I missed being together with everyone at church. I missed my community. Today as a staff we gathered in the church, keeping a safe distance from one another, we videotaped liturgy for the 4th Sunday of Lent. As I noticed the maintenance man join us, my heart swelled a bit. I love these people I work with, and how fortunate I felt to be able to share this liturgy with them after being absent from one another for even one week. "Fasting" is taking on a whole other significance for me this Lent. It's not so much about food on Fridays as it is the presence of others in my life. The opportunity for human connections. Those every day hugs and greetings that we take for granted.
But I digress. This Sundays' gospel is the story of the healing of the blind man. The constant refrain in this story is the question of what happened to him. He was blind, now he can see. Was he really blind? Who was the one who sinned, as if that were the cause of the blindness? Is he your son? Was he blind? Who healed you? Are you a sinner? What happened for real? And the blind man answers only "I don't know. I was blind, he touched my eyes and now I can see."
His parents don't understand what happened. The pharisees don't want to understand. The man himself really doesn't know what happened, but he sure is grateful, I'd bet. And when Jesus invites him to believe in the Son of Man, the man is all to willing to accept this invitation.
By the end of the story, we understand that the folks who were blind in this parable were the pharisees and all the folks who couldn't or wouldn't believe in Jesus. A very cool turn of events if you ask me.
Where are we blind today in our lives? In these days of Covad 19 what do we refuse to see clearly? In the face of the horrible stories of illness and death, of hoarding and doctors being forced to decide who gets a respirator and who doesn't, of disregarding advice from medical experts and being foolish or callous in the face of an unknown virus, perhaps what we are blind to are the simple human virtues that we need to call upon today: charity, kindness, a love for our neighbor. A willingness to share (do we really need all that toilet paper?)
The question I keep asking myself is this: What does all this have to do with my own lenten journey?
Fr Neil would surely be asking: Where is Jesus in all of this?
Have you pondered that for yourself yet? What is the connection between your Lenten Journey and what's going on in the world around you? I'd be curious to know what you discover for yourself. I know there's much to learn here, and like the blind man, much I need to see.
Will we have the grace and courage to open our eyes and see what Jesus is inviting us to discover?
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